Part 3. Tracing the Cosmogony Account from the Original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i><\/p>\n
If the \u201cBook of Dzyan\u201d is real, we may wonder why it has been kept secret until H. P. Blavatsky brought out stanzas from it on cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis. In response to this question, it will be instructive to try to trace the cosmogony account from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i>. As found in the various pur\u0101\u1e47as now extant, this account goes from an impersonal primary substance as the origin of the world and of what people call God, to primary substance being equated with God, to God creating primary substance and the world through His will. Apparently the custodians of the \u201cBook of Dzyan\u201d did not want this to happen to its teachings, and thus preferred to hand down this book in secret. We see that its custodians, now known as the Theosophical Mahatmas, tried to address these very same questions of God and ultimate substance when they allowed some of the teachings from the \u201cBook of Dzyan\u201d to be made public.<\/p>\n
Like any busy executive, the Theosophical Mahatmas normally imparted what they wanted to say to their \u201csecretaries,\u201d advanced chelas such as H. P. Blavatsky, who then passed it on to the appropriate party on their behalf. One of the two Englishmen who received \u201cMahatma letters\u201d in this way in the early 1880s, in attempting to write an exposition of the occult philosophy that he gathered from these letters, had drafted a chapter on \u201cGod.\u201d At this point the Mahatma K.H. replied, apparently directly, with one of the clearest and most forceful statements of their teachings that we have. As he said about this elsewhere, \u201cI cannot permit our sacred philosophy to be so disfigured.\u201d This extraordinary reply, known as Mahatma letter #10, is where the Mahatma says that they deny God, and that they believe in matter (or substance) alone. Here are a few highlights from it, starting with its opening sentence:<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither our philosophy nor ourselves believe in a God, least of all in one whose pronoun necessitates a capital H. . . . If people are willing to accept and to regard as God our ONE LIFE immutable and unconscious in its eternity they may do so and thus keep to one more gigantic misnomer. . . . When we speak of our One Life we also say that it penetrates, nay is the essence of every atom of matter; and that therefore it not only has correspondence with matter but has all its properties likewise, etc.\u2014hence is <\/i>material, is matter itself<\/i>. . . . Matter we know to be eternal, i.e.<\/i>, having had no beginning. . . . As to God\u2014since no one has ever or at any time seen him or it\u2014unless he or it is the very essence and nature of this boundless eternal matter, its energy and motion<\/i>, we cannot regard him as either eternal or infinite or yet self existing. . . . Then what do we believe in? . . . In other words we believe in MATTER alone, in matter as visible nature and matter in its invisibility as the invisible omnipresent omnipotent Proteus with its unceasing motion which is its life, and which nature draws from herself since she is the great whole outside of which nothing can exist. . . . The existence of matter then is a fact; the existence of motion is another fact, their self existence and eternity or indestructibility is a third fact. And the idea of pure spirit as a Being or an Existence\u2014give it whatever name you will\u2014is a chimera, a gigantic absurdity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of ultimate reality as eternal substance rather than a Godhead was so unexpected that it was doubted even by students of Theosophy and followers of the Theosophical Mahatmas. Is this really what the Mahatma meant? Did we understand him correctly? Is the letter authentic? Was it transmitted accurately? The three most advanced chelas of the Theosophical movement, H. P. Blavatsky, T. Subba Row, and Damodar Mavalankar, all agreed that the answer to these questions is \u201cyes.\u201d The teaching was correctly understood. Damodar Mavalankar, when reviewing a book in 1883, reiterated this teaching, and in so doing stressed that it is a central Theosophical teaching. He wrote:<\/p>\n
\u201cOne point, however, may be noticed, as it is found to be constantly contradicted and picked holes into, by the theists as well as by all the supporters of independent creation\u2014viz., the \u2018definition of matter.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Kapila defines matter to be eternal and co-existent with Spirit. It was never in a state of non-being, but always in a state of constant change, it is subtle and sentient,\u2019 &c., &c., (p. 2.)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what the Editor of this Journal [H. P. Blavatsky] has all along maintained and can hardly repeat too often. The article: \u2018What is Matter and what is Force?\u2019 in the Theosophist <\/i>for September 1882, is sufficiently lucid in reference to this question. It is at the same time pleasant to find that our learned friend and brother, Mr. T. Subba Row Garu, the great Adwaitee scholar, shares entirely with all of us these views, which every intuitional scholar, who comprehends the true spirit of the Sankhya <\/i>philosophy, will ever maintain. This may be proved by the perusal of a recent work on \u2018Yoga<\/i> Philosophy\u2019 by the learned Sanskritist, Dr. Rajendra Lala Mittra, the Introduction <\/i>to which has just appeared, showing clearly how every genuine scholar comprehends the Sankhya <\/i>in the same spirit as we do. The ONE LIFE of the Buddhists, or the Parabrahm of the Vedantins, is omnipresent and eternal. Spirit and matter are but its manifestations. As the energising force\u2014Purush of Kapila\u2014it is Spirit\u2014as undifferentiated cosmic matter, it is Mulaprakriti. <\/em>As differentiated cosmic matter, the basis of phenomenal evolution, it is Prakriti. <\/em>In its aspect of being the field of cosmic ideation, it is Chidakasam; <\/em>as the germ of cosmic ideation it is Chinmatra; <\/em>while in its characteristic of perception it is Pragna. <\/em>Whoever presumes to deny these points denies the main basis of Hindu Philosophy and clings but to its exoteric, weather-beaten, fast fading out shell.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n (The Theosophist<\/i>, vol. 4, no. 12, September 1883, p. 318)<\/p>\n The article that Damodar refers to, \u201cWhat is Matter and What Is Force?,\u201d also authored by the Mahatma K.H., sums up in its conclusion:<\/p>\n \u201cTherefore, whether it is called Force or Matter, it will ever remain the Omnipresent Proteus of the Universe, the one element\u2014LIFE\u2014Spirit or Force at its negative<\/i>, Matter at its positive <\/i>pole; the former the MATERIO-SPIRITUAL, the latter, the MATERIO-PHYSICAL Universe\u2014Nature, Svabhavat or INDESTRUCTIBLE MATTER.\u201d<\/p>\n In Mahatma letter #22, a follow-up to Mahatma letter #10, the Mahatma K.H. says about spirit and matter: \u201cit is one of the elementary and fundamental doctrines of Occultism that the two are one, and are distinct but in their respective manifestations, and only in the limited perceptions of the world of senses.\u201d In letter #10 after saying \u201cwe believe in MATTER alone,\u201d he went on, \u201cwith its unceasing motion which is its life.\u201d In letter #22 he explained: \u201cMotion is eternal because spirit is eternal. But no modes of motion can ever be conceived unless they be in connection with matter.\u201d That is why he cannot accept spirit as a principle distinct from matter. Spirit, puru\u1e63a, is the motion or life of matter, prak\u1e5bti. And that is why he would give matter as primary, saying \u201cwe believe in MATTER alone\u201d rather than \u201cwe believe in SPIRIT alone.\u201d There can be no motion without something to move.<\/p>\n Thus, understanding \u201cmatter alone\u201d to be living matter or substance, endowed with motion or life or spirit, we have a succinct statement of ultimate reality as taught in the Wisdom Tradition now known as Theosophy. As already noted, ultimate reality, the highest (para) brahman, is clearly and unambiguously equated with primary substance (pradh\u0101na) and substance or matter (prak\u1e5bti) in the cosmogony account from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i>. This makes the cosmogony account from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i> to be of particular value for our Book of Dzyan research. It provides, in the oldest form that can be traced, of the most central sourcebooks of Hindu cosmogony, direct agreement with what is understood to be a fundamental teaching of the Wisdom Tradition that the Book of Dzyan comes from.<\/p>\n We may now proceed to try to trace the cosmogony account from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i> through its changes in the now extant pur\u0101\u1e47as, and try to see how the teaching of primary substance as ultimate reality was displaced by that of God. It is a good lesson in what happens to primeval truths over time in the hands of the public. It illustrates why the custodians of the \u201cBook of Dzyan\u201d preferred to preserve it in secret.<\/p>\n Our oldest sources (the V\u0101yu<\/i> and Brahm\u0101\u1e47\u1e0da<\/i> pur\u0101\u1e47as) report only one player here in the first verse of the creation or emanation (sarga) account derived from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i>, namely, the unmanifest (avyakta), the cause (k\u0101ra\u1e47a), called primary substance (pradh\u0101na), or substance (prak\u1e5bti). This same verse is also found with no substantial variants in the K\u016brma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> (4.6) and the Bhavi\u1e63ya<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> (1.77.2), and somewhat re-worded in the Vi\u1e63\u1e47u Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> (1.2.19) and the M\u0101rka\u1e47\u1e0deya<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> (45.32), but adding only the adjective \u201csubtle\u201d (s\u016bk\u1e63ma) to \u201csubstance\u201d (prak\u1e5bti). Primary substance (unmanifest, and quite non-physical, we recall) is in the following lines of the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i> account described as the highest (para) brahman, ultimate reality.<\/p>\n In other than the oldest sources of the creation or emanation (sarga) account derived from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i> we find its first verse in more or less modified form. Padma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.2.8 merely summarizes that everything emanates (s\u1e5bjati) from the unmanifest (avyakta), the cause (k\u0101ra\u1e47a), what was called primary substance (pradh\u0101na) in the fuller verse. The \u201cLaws of Manu,\u201d Manu-sm\u1e5bti<\/i> 1.11, specifies that what emanated from this is the puru\u1e63a (\u201cperson, male\u201d) called Brahm\u0101. Brahm\u0101 is the creator god (not the neuter absolute brahman). So puru\u1e63a is here not the cosmic principle \u201cspirit,\u201d who would be our second major player. Rather, this Manu-sm\u1e5bti<\/i> verse introduces our third main player, the puru\u1e63a (\u201cperson\u201d or \u201cmale\u201d) who is equivalent to the creator god Brahm\u0101, and who is also called \u012b\u015bvara, \u201cGod,\u201d or loka-bh\u0101vana, \u201ccreator of the world(s),\u201d in other variations of this verse.<\/p>\n Besides in Manu-sm\u1e5bti<\/i> 1.11, puru\u1e63a is also brought into this verse as it is found in Brahma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.33 or 1.34, Hariva\u1e43\u015ba<\/i> 1.17, and \u015aiva<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 5.29.5. Here things get fuzzy in regard to how puru\u1e63a is meant. Although the Manu-sm\u1e5bti<\/i> no doubt underwent modification, it probably did so less than most of the pur\u0101\u1e47as did. So we may take its version of this verse as a reasonably reliable guide for comparison on this question. As already noted, its Brahm\u0101, the creator god, or the synonyms \u012b\u015bvara, \u201cGod,\u201d and loka-bh\u0101vana, \u201ccreator of the world(s),\u201d bring in puru\u1e63a as our third main player, rather than puru\u1e63a as the cosmic principle \u201cspirit.\u201d<\/p>\n In Brahma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.33 or 1.34, \u012b\u015bvara (\u201cGod\u201d) is the puru\u1e63a (\u201cperson, male\u201d), and he produces (nirmame) the universe from primary substance (pradh\u0101na). The very same wording also occurs in Hariva\u1e43\u015ba<\/i> 1.17, except that it has puru\u1e63a in a grammatically different case (puru\u1e63am rather than puru\u1e63as), so that puru\u1e63a is no longer \u012b\u015bvara. Here, if we accept this grammatically problematic reading, puru\u1e63a may be taken as the cosmic principle \u201cspirit\u201d rather than as the \u201cperson\u201d or \u201cmale.\u201d Then to make sense of the verse we must force its construal, and have it say that \u012b\u015bvara (\u201cGod\u201d) produces the universe from primary substance (pradh\u0101na) and spirit (puru\u1e63a). For the Hariva\u1e43\u015ba<\/i> we have a critical edition, and we see that not all of the manuscripts accepted this reading (puru\u1e63am rather than puru\u1e63as). Indeed, the oldest manuscript says just the opposite, that pradh\u0101na (primary substance) and puru\u1e63a (spirit) produce (nirmame) this creator of the world (loka-bh\u0101vana; i.e., Brahm\u0101, given in the following verse).<\/p>\n This verse as found in \u015aiva<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 5.29.5 is even more grammatically problematic. Here is what the \u201cBoard of Scholars\u201d who translated it could make of it: \u201cPuru\u1e63a is eternal and he is of the nature of Sat and Asat as Pradh\u0101na and Puru\u1e63a. The creator of the worlds created Pradh\u0101na after becoming Puru\u1e63a.\u201d This would be a reversal, having puru\u1e63a, spirit, create pradh\u0101na, primary substance. This, of course, makes little sense when pradh\u0101na is everywhere said to be eternal, and therefore could never be created.<\/p>\n So of the four sources that bring puru\u1e63a into this verse, puru\u1e63a is clearly the \u201cperson\u201d or \u201cmale\u201d as Brahm\u0101, the creator god, in Manu-sm\u1e5bti<\/i> 1.11, and as \u012b\u015bvara (\u201cGod\u201d) in Brahma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.33 or 1.34. Because of a grammatically questionable reading in Hariva\u1e43\u015ba<\/i> 1.17, and multiple ones in \u015aiva<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 5.29.5, we cannot say that these verses unambiguously bring in puru\u1e63a as the cosmic principle \u201cspirit.\u201d Our second major player, puru\u1e63a as the cosmic principle \u201cspirit,\u201d appears unambiguously only in the fourth verse of this account only as it is found in the Bhavi\u1e63ya<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> (1.77.5). This verse may be translated as: \u201c. . . without form, unknowable, they call this the highest (para) puru\u1e63a. By the self (\u0101tman) of this great self (mah\u0101tman) all this world is pervaded.\u201d Here puru\u1e63a, like pradh\u0101na in its first verse, is clearly used as a synonym of the absolute brahman. However, the other pur\u0101\u1e47as that have this account in full (V\u0101yu<\/i>, Brahm\u0101\u1e47\u1e0da<\/i>, K\u016brma<\/i>, and Li\u1e45ga<\/i>, and also its somewhat re-worded form in the M\u0101rka\u1e47\u1e0deya<\/i>) all have brahman here in this verse rather than puru\u1e63a. So it is probable that only brahman, and not puru\u1e63a as \u201cspirit,\u201d is found here in the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i>.<\/p>\n Lastly, we get to the first verse of the creation or emanation (sarga) account as found in Li\u1e45ga<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.70.3. We have seen that in Manu-sm\u1e5bti<\/i> 1.11 puru\u1e63a as the creator god Brahm\u0101 emanates from the unmanifest (avyakta), also called primary substance (pradh\u0101na), and that in Brahma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.33\/1.34 puru\u1e63a as \u012b\u015bvara (\u201cGod\u201d) produces the universe from primary substance (pradh\u0101na). Now in the Li\u1e45ga<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> what had been merely our third player trumps our first player. Here in the preceding verse the great God (mah\u0101-\u012b\u015bvara, mahe\u015bvara), also known as \u015aiva, stands above substance (prak\u1e5bti) and spirit (puru\u1e63a), and is equated with the highest self (parama-\u0101tman). From this God (\u012b\u015bvar\u0101t tasm\u0101t) came (abhavat, \u201cbecame\u201d) the unmanifest (avyakta), the cause (k\u0101ra\u1e47a), called primary substance (pradh\u0101na) and substance (prak\u1e5bti). Our verses now continue unchanged (except ajara for aj\u0101ta), bringing in the highest (para) brahman as a synonym of primary substance (pradh\u0101na). But here the Li\u1e45ga<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> adds \u201cimpelled by the command of God\u201d (\u012b\u015bvara-\u0101j\u00f1\u0101-pracodita). After another unchanged verse (except aprak\u0101\u015ba for as\u0101mprata), the Li\u1e45ga<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> account concludes with one more dramatic change: It was \u201cby the will of \u015aiva\u201d (\u015biva-icchay\u0101) that \u201call this [universe] was pervaded by its [brahman\u2019s] self (\u0101tman).\u201d So here in a full reversal, God creates primary substance (pradh\u0101na), rather than God emanates from primary substance.<\/p>\n The idea of a God who can create even primary substance, supposed to be eternal, found its way into this cosmogony account from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i> only gradually. In the Li\u1e45ga<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> version of it, primary substance is stated to have originated from God or \u015aiva. The K\u016brma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> version of it is also preceded by a verse bringing in God, stating that the great God (mah\u0101-\u012b\u015bvara, mahe\u015bvara), also known as \u015aiva, is above the unmanifest (avyakta), and is the niyant\u1e5b (regulator, controller, governor) [of the universe]. Here, however, this God may be equated with primary substance rather than being its creator, by way of the relative pronoun, yat, in the first verse of the cosmogony account proper. After the verse that precedes this account, the K\u016brma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> continues with a largely unchanged version of this cosmogony account in comparison with that found in the V\u0101yu<\/i> and Brahm\u0101\u1e47\u1e0da<\/i> pur\u0101\u1e47as.<\/p>\n A verse mentioning God and the great God similar to the one preceding the cosmogony account in the K\u016brma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> also found its way into the V\u0101yu<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i>, in a different location (1.42 or 1.48-49), although it is not found in the corresponding Brahm\u0101\u1e47\u1e0da<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i>. Its construal with the verse that follows it, the same verse that appears in Padma<\/i> Pur\u0101\u1e47a<\/i> 1.2.8 (mentioned above), is ambiguous. But in yet another location, the V\u0101yu<\/i> (2.41.36 or 103.36) and Brahm\u0101\u1e47\u1e0da<\/i> (3.4.4.35) pur\u0101\u1e47as clearly state that the great God (mah\u0101-\u012b\u015bvara, mahe\u015bvara) arises from the unmanifest (avyakta), the cause (k\u0101ra\u1e47a), from primary substance (pradh\u0101na) and spirit (puru\u1e63a), and this God is also there called Brahm\u0101, the creator god. In other words, the great God (mah\u0101-\u012b\u015bvara, mahe\u015bvara) is there equated with our third player.<\/p>\n In the cosmogony account that can be recovered from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i>, no God is involved. The impersonal \u201cgreat\u201d (mahat) principle, also called the principle of intelligence (buddhi), emanates from primary substance, and the world emanates from the \u201cgreat\u201d principle. The \u201cgreat\u201d principle then came to be called the creator god Brahm\u0101, or just God (\u012b\u015bvara), or even the great God (mah\u0101-\u012b\u015bvara, mahe\u015bvara). Once this happened, God became more and more powerful in human estimation. So as seen above, we go from no God, to God who emanates from primary substance, to God who is equated with primary substance, to God who creates primary substance. As the idea of God moved in, the teaching of ultimate primary substance faded out (see: \u201cGod’s Arrival in India<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u201d). Yet,\u00a0ultimate primary substance, endowed with motion or life or spirit, is affirmed to be the original teaching of the Wisdom Tradition, and the evidence from the original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101<\/i> strongly supports this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Part 3. Tracing the Cosmogony Account from the Original Pur\u0101\u1e47a-sa\u1e43hit\u0101 If the \u201cBook of Dzyan\u201d is real, we may wonder why it has been kept secret until H. P. Blavatsky brought out stanzas from it on cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis. In response to this question, it will be instructive to try to trace the cosmogony account […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creation-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":419,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}